13 May
Virat Kohli’s retirement creates a vacuum in the Indian Cricket Team which will be difficult to fill. He had a great career and was easily one of the greatest batsmen that India has produced.
One of the greatest qualities of leadership is to spot talent and then give it an opportunity to develop at the right time. For this we must give full credit to Dilip Vengsarkar for recognizing the immense potential of Virat Kohli and drafting him into the National team when others were not so sure. Virat more than justified the faith reposed on him.
Succeeding in Test Cricket is not easy even though you might be having a lot of innate ability. The opposition equipped with modern tools of analysis goes into great depth of the batting style of any new player and they are quick to exploit even the smallest of weaknesses. This is why many test batsmen have started off with a flourish but then slowly faded out. I remember Virat beginning with a bang and then going through a horrendous English tour of 2013 where he scored only 137 runs in ten innings. It seemed that some weakness in his batting had been exposed. We all thought that this was the beginning of the end of another potentially promising career. But we had reckoned without the resilience and fierce determination of Virat. He worked on his batting and came out a super star in the 2014 Australia tour. There was no looking back after that. The period from 2014 to 2019 established Virat Kohli as one of the top batsmen in the world. 2016-18 was his golden era where he smashed all records and scored more than a thousand runs in each calendar year.
His form dipped after 2019 with the possible exception of 2023 yet he remained one batsman that the opposition bowlers feared the most. We, also, always had hope as long as Kohli was batting. He inspired confidence. His commitment to the game was total and he was always intensely involved which sometimes rubbed people the wrong way. He was greatly successful as a Captain.
Virat Kohli with his batting and intensity as well as the desire to win gave us moments of great joy and excitement. His journey is a story of inspiration and a master class on how to succeed in your chosen career.
Indian team will not be the same without him. Wishing him the best for his future.
